cities: Rome tenacious, and hard workers who could ably defend the city from attack and build its economy North Africa had many such cities An example is Timgad (Thamugadi), built in 100 c.e for retired soldiers in Numidia (in present-day Algeria) It was laid out in a strict grid with its eastern and western gates opening on significant trade routes Within its walls were a forum, basilica, market, and baths, but somewhat unusually its capitol was placed outside the wall As the city grew, perhaps reaching 15,000 people, it added several baths outside the city walls In North Africa the Romans also built cities at the sites of existing Phoenician towns Leptis Magna (in modern-day Libya) was a Phoenician colony that became part of the Roman Empire in 46 b.c.e It gained fame as the birthplace of Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211 c.e.) and may have had a population of 12,000 Timgad and Leptis are examples of the different fates of Roman cities after the fall of the Western Roman Empire Timgad survived because it was on an important trade route Without Roman engineers to maintain its once splendid harbor and without the empire’s market for its goods, Leptis Magna faded and was abandoned during the Arab invasion of the 500s c.e During its long existence the Western Empire itself contained had many examples of cities that became successful showcases for Roman life In what is now Germany, Trier (the Roman name was Augusta Treverorum) began as a military camp under Augustus and was made a city between 41 and 54 c.e It was laid out as grid, but its wall curved with the contours of the Moselle River London (Londinium) was founded in 43 c.e and grew to 45,000 people before, for various reasons, its population began declining in the 200s c.e POPULATION AND PROBLEMS To Roman city planners the ideal city would have no more than 20,000 residents, and thus they designed new cities to hold no more than that In a new city the initial residents, perhaps just soldiers and their families, might number only a few thousand When a city fi lled up, the hope of the Romans was to build another several miles away, thus keeping each city to a size thought to be comfortable This is one reason Roman cities seem to be everywhere in the lands that fell within the empire’s borders—they were part of a continuous process of managing populations, and the building of them was not expected ever to end Even so, some cities had exploding populations simply because they were ideally located for commerce or to be seats of government, and they drew so many people to them that the cities sprawled beyond their walls One example was Lyons, in modern-day France Under its Roman name of Lugdunum its population reached 200,000 Rome itself provided the greatest example of out-of-control population growth Even by 509 b.c.e it had a population of 40,000, and during the first century b.c.e that number reached a million The city’s original plowed circumference had to be redone outside the new city limits, with new outer walls built, but this was hardly the only problem associated 229 with mushrooming population growth Rome had become a place with many tenements and, in the old quarters, narrow streets During his reign Augustus attempted to bring some order to the situation through massive building projects and a reorganization of the city into 14 regions, each with its own administrator appointed by the emperor He created a police department to battle a crime wave, and he organized a fire department Every Roman city was vulnerable to fire, and large portions of Rome had burned on several occasions The duties of Rome’s fire department were mainly to organize bucket brigades (there was never enough water pressure for fire hoses) and to knock down buildings around a blaze to prevent its spread Augustus assigned to his son-in-law Marcus Agrippa the administration of many of Rome’s building projects, and Agrippa also expanded and added to the city’s aqueducts, increasing the flow of water by two to four times Other public projects undertaken by Augustus were the dredging of the Tiber, which was filling with silt, and personally overseeing the distribution of food to the city’s poor Caring for the poor became institutionalized in the empire, with some cities even setting aside a covered area near the forum where homeless people could gather to stay out of bad weather INSIDE A ROMAN CITY A traveler entering the typical ancient Roman city first passed through an enormous stone gateway The Romans built grand gates to impress visitors with the feeling of entering sacred ground that was set apart from the ordinary world outside Once within the gates, the traveler would notice the many small touches that enhanced life in a Roman city The streets would be paved with either stone or brick and would be wide enough for two carts to pass each other with room enough left for a third cart Most people walked wherever they needed to go in the city, whether for business or pleasure, and great care was taken to protect pedestrians Streets had raised stone along their sides to prevent carts from straying onto the sidewalks, and sidewalks were everywhere, even among the residences of the poor In commercial and residential areas alike the sidewalks were covered, either by roofs or by overhanging balconies In some cities the law required homeowners to provide cover over the sidewalks adjacent to their buildings There were also crosswalks consisting of rows of large, flattopped stones set less than a stride apart, on the top of which pedestrians stepped (The crosswalks also helped to slow traffic, rather like ancient speed bumps, because carters had to maneuver their wheels around the stones.) A Roman city was typically laid out in a grid pattern of streets and was either square or rectangular Th is was not a rigid practice; Roman city planners accommodated the local terrain, working around variations such as hills and valleys Once the essential elements of forum, capitol, basilica, curia, and the theater were mapped, neighborhoods were laid out, usually divided into sections for the upper class, middle class, craft smen, and the poor If the city had been